boneymicheleon1769x

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8th Franco-Polish Light Cavalry Regiment

Jan Chełmiński (Polish, 1851-1925)

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don't worry y'all, i'm producing my own immersive phantom. tickets are ten bucks and the venue is the storm tunnel underneath the las vegas strip, when it rains we float the gondola in the flash floods. food is provided (2 foot long hot dog)

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Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau by Antoine-Jean Gros

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Marshal Ney at Eylau by Richard Caton Woodville Jr.

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your Napoleon art is so beautiful! would you ever draw Josephine too? or maybe some famous british figures during this time like Nelson or Wellington? no pressure of course, have a great day!

Thank you for the compliment. I had some time, so I tried to paint it. I usually paint Napoleon, but I really want to paint many people of that era. As for the British army, I'd like to read a few more books to get a better idea.

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my ipad suddenly BROKE sorry chat i won’t be drawing anything in a while so have this for now

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my favorite Bessieres!

i love his outdated hair and cool uniform

from LA LANCIERE POLONAISE MARIA (岸田 恋)

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illustration on my twitter

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no one understands the emotional release this gave me

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Cavalrymen in the Battle of Wagram by Wojciech Kossak

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Battle of Waterloo

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Portrait of Napoleon on horseback, at the Battle of Ligny '16me Juin 1815'

French School, early 19th century

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Napoleon at Waterloo by Ludwig Klimsch

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Ney, éperdu, grand de toute la hauteur de la mort acceptée, s'offrait à tous les coups dans cette tourmente. Il eut son cinquième cheval tué sous lui. En sueur, la flamme aux yeux, l'écume aux lèvres, l'uniforme déboutonné, une de ses épaulettes à demi coupée par le coup de sabre d'un horse-guard, sa plaque de grand-aigle bosselée par une balle, sanglant, fangeux, magnifique, une épée cassée à la main, il disait : « Venez voir comment meurt un maréchal de France sur un champ de bataille ! » Mais en vain ; il ne mourut pas.**

Victor Hugo

I've always had a soft spot for Marshal Ney. Napoleon had said: "He is as weak as he is brave and his excessive ambition gives him a hold. Ney is the bravest of men." And so he was.

It was at the battle of Waterloo, roughly at 4pm, Marshal Ney noticed quite the sight. Ahead of him, Wellington's centre appeared to be folding and looked like the beginning of an organised retreat. Aware that the British were not decisively defeated, he rallied a cavalry force of roughly 9,000 and prepared a charge to cut down the fleeing British.

Why cavalry alone? After all, this was a Marshal who served under an Emperor who heavily advocated for cavalry to be used alongside infantry and artillery, and never alone. Wanting to take advantage of an opportunity, Ney needed to act quickly. The reality of the situation was most of Napoleon's infantry was already committed in other areas of the battle, and so Ney hoped to break Wellington's centre with cavalry alone.

British infantry were made quickly aware of the masses of cavalry forming along the French lines and retired behind the crest of the hill where they formed into square formations. So as not to repeat the failures of the French gunners, British gunners were ordered to take shelter in the squares and take their positions again once the charge faded away.

The square formation was deadly, though not impenetrable. A concentrated cavalry attack had the potential to break through the 'walls' of the square, but as one would expect such a feat is difficult. The British squares were thus arranged in such a fashion that neighboring squares could support one another, creating 'corridors of death' by forcing French cavalry down and around the sides of the square so as to retain their momentum.

Captain Rees Gronow of the British Foot Guards commented on the charge that it was 'n overwhelming, long moving line, which, ever advancing, glittered like a stormy wave of the sea when it catches the sunlight … one might suppose that nothing could have resisted the shock of this terrible moving mass.'

Without support, Ney's initial charges were unsuccessful. His attacks were repeatedly repelled both by the steadfastness of the British squares and the successful counter charges by British and Dutch cavalry, and what remained of the Household Cavalry.

Napoleon, witnessing the disaster, commented that the charge happened an hour too early.

Among the generals who covered themselves in glory during the Revolution and the First Empire, there is none whose male and heroic figure inspires more sympathy than that of Marshal Ney. But he didn’t achieve the glory he wanted that day at Waterloo. For that he did pay the ultimate price.

For Marshal Ney's life was intimately linked to the political and military events of France, from the end of the Ancien Régime to the Restoration. It was he the king sent to stop Napoleon when he escaped Elba and landed back on French soil. Loyal though he was to France itself he was was unable to cope with the political upheavals of the Hundred Days. Faced with the difficult choice between two loyalties, to the King and to the Emperor, he chose Napoleon.

At Waterloo where Marshal Ney charged five times at the head of his cavalry, vainly seeking death on the battlefield. Instead he died by firing squad by the restored Bourbon monarchy at the age of 46, judged by his peers in a hasty manner, even though he was destined for a glorious death on the battlefield, in the heat of the action, as he had always wanted.

Ney, distraught, tall with all the height of accepted death, offered himself to all the blows in this turmoil. His fifth horse was killed beneath him. Sweating, flame in his eyes, foam on his lips, his uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulettes half-cut by a horse-guard's sabre stroke, his grand-aigle plate dented by a bullet, bloody, muddy, magnificent, with a broken sword in his hand, he said: "Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on a battlefield! But in vain; he did not die.**

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Armour of a cuirasse du carabinier holed by a cannonball at the battle of Waterloo, 1815

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Details of Marshal Ney at the head of the French cavalry, from the Panorama canvas of the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium

by Louis Dumoulin

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I have been thinking of this Canal+ ad with napoleon in it